The Bright Field

I have seen the sun break through
to illuminate a small field
for a while, and gone my way
and forgotten it. But that was the pearl
of great price, the one field that had
the treasure in it. I realise now
that I must give all that I have
to possess it. Life is not hurrying

on to a receding future, nor hankering after
an imagined past. It is the turning
aside like Moses to the miracle
of the lit bush, to a brightness
that seemed as transitory as your youth
once, but is the eternity that awaits you.

R. S. Thomas

The Song

How shall I hold my soul that it
does not touch yours? How shall I lift
it over you to other things?
If it would only sink below
into the dark like some lost thing
or slumber in some quiet place
which did not echo your soft heart's beat.
But all that ever touched us - you and me -
touched us together
                              like a bow
that from two strings could draw one voice.
On what instrument were we strung?
And to what player did we sing
our interrupted song?

Dana Gioia
version after the German of Rainer Maria Rilke

Table

A man filled with the gladness of living
Put his keys on the table,
Put flowers in a copper bowl there.
He put his eggs and milk on the table.
He put there the light that came in through the window,
Sound of a bicycle, sound of a spinning wheel.
The softness of bread and weather he put there.
On the table the man put
Things that happened in his mind.
What he wanted to do in life,
He put that there.
Those he loved, those he didn't love,
The man put them on the table too.
Three times three make nine:
The man put nine on the table.
He was next to the window next to the sky;
He reached out and placed on the table endlessness.
So many days he had wanted to drink a beer!
He put on the table the pouring of that beer.
He placed there his sleep and his wakefulness;
His hunger and his fullness he put there.

Now that's what I call a table!
It didn't complain at all about the load.
It wobbled once or twice, then stood firm.
The man kept piling things on.

Edip Cansever
translated from the Turkish by Julia Clare and Richard Tillinghast
In: Being Human edited by Neil Astley
www.bloodaxebooks.com

What hurts the worst

What hurts the worst
Is that no longer will I be able to
Have contact with books,
To stand in front of my bookcase every morning
As on the shore of the sea
Caressed by secret breezes gently blowing
From the shelves.

Since I'm to be so close by,
O Lord, I hope I won't be denied
The pleasure of reading the stars.

Once a week, at least,
According to the schedule posted on a cloud.


From The Bridge by Marin Sorescu
In Being Human edited by Neil Astley www.bloodaxebooks.com